Posts Tagged With: Tom Lloyd

Book review of Tom Lloyd’s The Stormcaller

The Stormcaller is the third in a flurry of books I’ve read by publisher Pyr – the other two so far being The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie and Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I thoroughly enjoyed the other two Pyr books I’ve read so far, so I was expecting nothing less from The Stormcaller.

The Stormcaller is primarily a coming of age book about a boy who starts out with nothing, rejected by even his own father, and rises to a place of power and significance. I can’t say this is a story we haven’t all heard before: rags to riches, overcoming all odds, the list goes on. In addition to the rather typical plot, characters in The Stormcaller rise to power with super-human abilities, which in a way reminded me of Sanderson’s most recent work: The Way of Kings. Unfortunately for Lloyd, I like The Way of Kings more. While fantastic, Sanderson’s characters were just more believable.

While suffering a bit in the plot and character categories, The Stormcaller is still an enjoyable read. Tom Lloyd is a crafty wordsmith, and his prose flows with an ease that makes flipping these pages a joy. He’s not to shabby with description either, as evidenced in this excerpt:

Now he saw a powerful man with a harsh face, solid features all sharp lines and blunt corners. His brow was thick and strong, and his nose, but his features had an abrupt look, as if a craftsman had been interrupted in his work. The shape was there, the basic lines hewn with skill, but there had been no time to smooth the edges.

While I can see The Stormcaller doing well and gaining quite a fan base, this was a novel that just didn’t do it for me. The elements all seem to be there, but they didn’t mix quite well enough this time around to form the perfect fantasy brew that I believe Lloyd is capable of. I think a big challenge for me is characterization: when I don’t connect with the characters, I lose interest, and the rest of the novel suffers. However, this may be something that other readers don’t struggle with, and for those readers, I would recommend The Stormcaller.

Great reviews crossed the blogosphere this week, from Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, to The Scarab Path by Adrian Tchaikovsky and others. Check out the interviews with Brent Weeks, Patrick Rothfuss, Ursula K. Le Guin, and James Cameron. Rounding out this week in fantasy blogosphere news is a review of The Eye of the World #4 comic, cover art for the Knife of Dreams eBook, and a desktop wallpaper for Brent Week’s The Black Prism.

If you’re looking for a few good book reviews, you’ve come to the right place this week. I’d really like to check out Shadowrise and The Stormcaller when I find some time to fit them into my reading schedule. Also this week, a pair of interviews: video of Raymond E. Feist commenting on his 30 book series, his methods of character development, and how he feels fans have received his work over the years, as well as a transcript of an interview with the great Peter S. Beagle. We continue to follow the development of the Firefly comic series (solely because Patton Oswalt is hilarious), and we cap the week with news about Frank Frazetta and the family feud that has been surrounding his work for years.

We’ve got a boatload of reviews this week, covering everything from more recent titles like The Gathering Storm and Dragon Keeper to young classics such as A Storm of Swords, The Hero of Ages and The Lies of Locke Lamora. The Stormcaller by Tom Lloyd also looks promising, having potentially been looked over in a year when other authors like Scott Lynch were making their big debuts. The Dragon Page recently intervieweed Gail Z. Martin, and Ursula K. Le Guin continues to fight for her rights against Google. We cap off a stellar week with news of an inmate in Wisconsin being prohibited from playing D&D in prison. What will inmates want next, a renaissance festival on prison grounds?